iQOO today launched the Neo 10 smartphone in India in the Neo 10 series in India. This has impressive specifications on paper, including a high refresh rate OLED display, the latest Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 SoC and a huge 7000mAh battery. Is this the best phone in the market for gaming in the under 35K price range? Let use dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Camera |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- iQOO Neo 10 16GB + 512GB version in Inferno Red colour
- Clear Silicon case
- USB Type-C Cable
- 120W Super FlashCharge wall adapter
- SIM ejector tool
- Quick start guide and Warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
The iQOO Neo 10R sports a 6.78-inch (2800×1260 pixels) 1.5K 20:9 aspect ratio AMOLED display with 144Hz refresh rate. The screen has up to 5500 nits peak brightness and up to 2000 nits in HBM mode. The colour output good as well since it has 1.07 billion colors.
You can select between 1080p and 1.5K display options. The 144Hz refresh rate, 300Hz touch sampling rate and 3000Hz instant touch sampling rate offer a smooth user experience, especially when you are scrolling through the UI and when gaming.
You can select from standard (default), professional and bright screen colour modes. You can select smart switch or force it to 60Hz or 144Hz. There is also MEMC and super resolution for improved frame rate and resolution in some apps like YouTube, Netflix and Prime video. There is 4320Hz PWM Dimming that is automatically activated when you are using the phone in low brightness. There is also DC Dimming. The screen has SCHOTT Xensation Up glass protection.
The phone has a new 32MP front camera inside the notch, compared to 16MP in the most models, including iQOO Neo 9 Pro. There is an earpiece on the top edge which also works as a secondary speaker. You can see 1.54mm ultra-narrow bezels on the sides and the bottom bezel is 2.39mm. The haptic feedback is good.
Coming to the button placements and ports, the power button is present on the right side along with the volume rockers. There is nothing on the left side. The dual SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are present on the bottom and the secondary microphone is present on the top along with the IR blaster. The phone has a plastic frame, but comes with a matte finish so it doesn’t attract fingerprints.
It weighs 206 grams, which is decent even though it packs a 7000mAh battery. The weight distribution is good.
The Inferno Red colour that we have has a dual tone design with pixel texture, which is inspired by the racing track. It also comes in a Titanium Chrome colour. It has IP65 ratings for dust and splash resistance.
Camera
- 50MP rear camera with 1/ 1.95″ Sony IMX882 sensor, f/1.79 aperture, OIS,
- 8MP ultra-wide angle lens with f/2.2 aperture
- 32MP front-facing camera with f/2.45 aperture
The camera UI is the same as other phones running Funtouch OS. It includes several features such as AR stickers, long exposure, 50MP mode, supermoon, fisheye and more. Even though the phone has a 50MP rear camera, the final output is 12.5MP in size after pixel binning, and the front camera output is 32MP.
Coming to the camera quality, the daylight shots are good, and it is recommended to enable HDR option which automatically switches on HDR according to the shot, so that the dynamic range is good. The camera can focus quickly. There is a 8MP ultra-wide camera is decent. The portrait mode has good edge detection.
Low-light images are decent as well, but there is noise when you zoom in. The night mode is useful, thanks to the optimization. There is also supermoon mode with up to 20x zoom, compared to 10x in the normal mode. The supermoon option is a good addition, but you can’t compare it to flagships.
The new 32MP camera does a good in daylight, and the front camera portrait is decent as well, but it is not the best when it comes to low-light.
Check out some camera samples below
It can record videos at 4k resolution at up to 60 fps from the rear and the front cameras, which the older mid-range iQOO phones lacked. It has standard and ultra stabilization, but the resolution is down to 1080p in ultra option since it crops the content. OIS does a good job in stabilization. It doesn’t have HDR video recording, but it has portrait video recording at 1080p 30 fps.
Software, UI and Apps
Coming to the software, the phone runs on Android 15 with Funtouch OS 15 on top. It recently got Android security patch for April 2025. The iQOO Neo 10 will get 3 years of Android OS updates and 4 years of security updates.
Funtouch OS 15 brings vivo’s Priority Scheduling model for 15% faster app startup time, has zRAM compression algorithm, resulting in a 40% boost in compression speed, vivo’s Origin Animation for a more natural and intuitive user experience. The Lightning-Speed Engine offers faster app launches, and Aqua Dynamic Effect adds a visually pleasing touch to system interactions.
AI Image Lab uses artificial intelligence to automatically improve photo quality with AI Photo Enhance, remove shadows from documents, erase unwanted content with AI eraser and image cutouts and AI image expander. Live wallpapers are now seamless, and there is also customized call background. There is Link to Windows that enhances collaboration between your vivo device and PC. It also has Circle to Search feature.
Out of 16GB of LPDDR5X Ultra RAM, about 14.84GB is usable, out of which 7GB is free when the default apps are running in the background. There is additional 16GB RAM expansion feature. Out of 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage, 458GB is free out of the box. The 128GB version of the phone use UFS 3.1 storage.
Since the phone has an IR blaster, it comes with a Smart Remote app. Apart from the usual set of utility and Google apps, it comes preloaded with a lot of apps such as Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Netflix, Spotify, BHIM and PhonePe. These apps can be uninstalled, but they come back after reset.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has an optical in-display fingerprint sensor which immediately unlocks the phone just by keeping your finger on the sensor. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. There are different animation styles that display when you unlock, which you can disable. The phone also has face unlock that can unlock the phone in seconds, but it is not as secure as fingerprint.
Music and Multimedia
The default Music Player also has equalizer and DeepField sound effects. It doesn’t have FM Radio support. There is audio super resolution, and super audio features. Audio through the stereo speakers is crisp and loud. Audio through the headphones is good as well.
This has Widevine L1 so that you can play HD content on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and other streaming apps. It also supports HDR playback on Netflix and YouTube.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It has the usual set of connectivity features such as 16 5G bands with support for SA: n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n18/n20/n26/n28A/n28B/n38/n40/n41/n48/n77/n78 and NSA: n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n20/n28A/n28B/n38/n40/n41/n77/n78 bands, and supports Airtel and Jio 5G out of the box. There is also dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 7 802.11 be (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 6GHz), Bluetooth 5.4, GPS + GLONASS, and also has NFC support. It also has USB OTG support, and it has USB 2.0. We did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume is good. There is 360° antenna system with 24 antennas including 9 dedicated 5G antennas.
The iQOO Neo 10’s body SAR is 0.658W/Kg and head SAR is at 0.913/Kg which is slightly less than Neo 10R, and is way under the limit in India which is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g).
Performance and Benchmarks
This is first phone to be powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 SoC in India. It uses the same microarchitecture as the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, but the performance has drastically improved.
It uses 1 x Kryo Prime CPU (Arm Cortex-X4 based) at up to 3.2GHz, 3 x Kryo Performance CPUs (Arm Cortex-A720 based) at up to 3.01GHz, 2 x Kryo Performance CPUs (Arm Cortex-A720 based) at up to 2.80GHz, 2x Kryo Performance CPUs (Arm Cortex-A720 based) at up to 2.02GHz, ARMv9 architecture.
The SoC is fabricated using the TSMC 4nm Process Technology, same as Snapdragon 8s Gen 3. The phone has 7000mm² canopy VC liquid cooling. The phone has 9 temperature sensors to maintain the temperature.
The Adreno 825 GPU has Hardware-Accelerated Ray Tracing with Global Illumination, Qualcomm Adaptive Performance Engine and Snapdragon Game Super Resolution 2.0.
The phone has Q1 Self-developed chip that offers 1.5K super resolution (supports in 20+ games) and 144 fps super frame rate using game frame interpolation. There are new animations in Ultra Game Mode, and the phone gets real-time FPS Tracking.
We did not face any issues or frame drops in the graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact, thanks to the new Adreno 825 GPU. The Super Computing chip helps to achieve ultra low latency even with the high frame rate games. In BGMI there is up to Ultra HDR graphics and Ultra frame rate option and offers 120fps native frame rate.
In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 76.9%, and the temperature shot up from 32 to 43 degrees. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
As you can see, the iQOO Neo 10 outperforms the iQOO 12 with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in most benchmarks.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 7000mAh (typical) Silicon Bluevolt battery, which huge compared to older iQOO Neo series phones. It can easily last for a day with heavy use, thanks to the optimization. I got 6 hours of screen on time with close to 2 days of use, mostly on Wi-Fi, and occasional 5G use with Smart refresh rate. But with optimization, it can be better since I felt that the iQOO Neo 10R lasted much longer with a 6400mAh battery.
Since the phone has support for 120W fast charging, it can charge up to 50% in about 19 minutes and up to 100% in less than 40 minutes. You will have to enable fast charging option if you want to reduce the charging time, but the phone gets a bit hot.
There is also a bypass charging feature when gaming, so the charging current bypasses the battery to go straight to the motherboard, so it doesn’t affect the battery. It doesn’t have wireless charging support, but has 10W reverse charging to charge other devices. The phone also supports 100W PPS/PD flash charging.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 31,999, the iQOO Neo 10 is a value performer with long-lasting battery. The camera is decent as well in most cases, and doesn’t miss out on NFC support. Wish it had started with the 256GB model instead of 128GB model.
Pricing and availability
The iQOO Neo 10 comes in Inferno Red and Titanium Chrome colours and is priced at Rs. 31,999 for the 8GB + 128GB model, 8GB + 256GB model costs Rs. 33,999, 12GB + 256GB model is priced at Rs. 35,999 and the top-end 16GB + 512GB model costs Rs. 40,999.
It is now available to pre-order from Amazon.in and iQOO online store and will be availablefrom June 2nd at 12PM for pre-booking users and from June 3rd for others.
Alternatives
If you spend more, there is OnePlus 13R that offers an LTPO panel and better build quality and a slightly better camera.
Pros
- 144Hz 1.5K AMOLED HDR display is brilliant
- Smooth performance and good gaming performance
- Decent camera performance in most cases
- Good battery life with 120W fast charging
Cons
- 128GB entry level model
- A lot of preloaded apps